Has anyone out there heard of 'hypermiling' ??

With the price of oil near all-time highs, there are people out there trying to find ways to stretch every gallon of fuel to the max. This is how the term 'Hypermiling' came about.

We may not have the clout to influence the gas prices, but we can do something about our driving habits now. Wikipedia's page on hypermiling includes basic and advanced techniques on how to maximize fuel economy ... One thing I believe we all could do starting today is to avoid idling our cars and trucks. Remember ladies and gents, when you're idling and not moving, no matter if it's a fuel sipper or a gas guzzler, you're still getting ZERO miles per gallon!

To be fair, there are controversial issues related to hypermiling. Some say that the difference in speed between you and someone else may be a safety issue. Well, what do you all think about this? Has anyone tried it?

Green Crude

The word "crude" doesn't invoke a positive image in a lot of people's minds, black sludge that it is. The word "green" however, does. It is the color of life itself. How do we reconcile these two ideas?

One company, Sapphire Energy has done it. They now can produce something called "Green Crude" a 91-octane gasoline magically out of algae, sunlight and water. Ladies and gentlemen, this is the dawn of a new age ...

We all need to get somewhere and our own personal vehicles perform that function. Sadly, the world's oil is not without limit, but this "Green Crude" biofuel is what will help us maintain our mobility and freedom. Good on them and good for us ... Now how can we help these good people load these goodies into our local gas stations?

Car suspensions can be the same for different brands

Hello all. At an earlier post, I mentioned that there was nothing wrong with the Ecotec turbo four. This time, I'd like to comment generally on the suspension settings of vehicles.

In his blog, Mr. Lutz spoke concerning the GM Global Product Development process (read it here). He said, "Suspensions can be vastly different, changing the character and behavior of the vehicle, depending on brand."

Here's an idea, suspension settings don't even have to be different for vehicles of similar size. Witness the Enclave / Acadia / Outlook platform mates. I understand that their suspension settings were the same, and the reviews for the abovementioned vehicles tout their handling characteristics. Waiting at an intersection, I even saw a very enthusiastic driver take a fast right with his Enclave and it remained quite composed indeed.

Once a very good suspension settings are configured, there is little if any need to tweak them for different brands. These vehicles will have fans by the boatload whether they're branded and styled as Opel/Saturn, Saab or Chevy. Mr. Lutz, configure them right (once) and they will come ...

Well, what do you think?

Icon vs. Icon

I came across an article from TopGear pitting the Nissan GT-R against the Mitsubishi Evolution X. At first, this seems like David vs. Goliath. The GT-R being the monster (a.k.a. Godzilla) of the two and the Evolution X, still a powerful car built on an econobox platform. Although both really qualify as icons in terms of Japanese automotive excellence ... Enjoy the ride (read about it here).

The 2.0L turbo four is not an abomination

Hello all. General Motors has begun testing turbo fours in their large cars (reference here). This is not an abomination. Actually, VW has been doing the same thing for years. They have their own turbo four used in their GTI, Jetta GLI, Passat, EOS and the upcoming Tiguan. That's pretty much their whole stable. So what's wrong with that?

GM has used their Ecotec turbo in RWD applications for the Solstice GXP and Sky RedLine. They've also used the Ecotec turbo in FWD applications for the HHR SS and Cobalt SS turbo. The engineering work is done. It is possible.

What remains to be seen is how to market these cars ("impression management" as some say). What is the image projected by these specific applications. A turbo four in a cushy sedan? A turbo four in a pony car? Am I insane? Definitely not.

The Ecotec base was already tested in a race engine application with up to 1000 hp. That's not chump change to me. The tunability of this engine is what draws people in, just like the VW 1.8L and 2.0L turbo fours. Oh, and in case you didn't know, the Ariel Atom 2 kit car importable to the United States can be had with ... that's right, an Ecotec turbo four.

The marketing guys have their work cut out for them, but they just have to know how to present it. They'd have to show the pedigree of that family of engines, then it won't look so strange in big cars.

Well, what do you think?

CarEvo backgrounder

Hello all. This being my first post, I thought I'd give some relevant background about myself.

When I was young, I wanted to be a car designer. I just thought it would be so cool. Well, I found out not too long afterward that I had no artistic skill whatsoever, so that dream died very early. Nevertheless, I was remained an avid observer of the automotive industry in general.

I'm a voracious reader of automotive news ever since the internet became widely available starting from my college years. I would say on average, I would read about car rumors and spy reports and almost anything and everything related to cars 5 days a week.

I also own a 2001 Honda Prelude so some of my perspectives are from the import aspect. My dad has also owned some domestics: GM sedans and Chrysler minivans, so I can also see things from the perspective of domestic automakers.

So I'll end this post here. There's no sense in boring you with my mundane life but hopefully, dear readers, you will find my bite-sized posts, opinions and rants on everything automotive quite interesting. Come along for the drive ...